After the Meiji Restoration of 1862, Western philosophy was imported and infused into Japanese culture and its intellectual climate. By the early 20th Century, Kyoto School philosophers and romantic authors sought to reaffirm Japanese culture, believed jeopardised by the hastened development of Western capitalist modernity. This movement became politically charged, and is not without fascist allegations. After the Second World War modernism again became a primary intellectual concern, as modernists and Asianists alike attempted to struggle with the idea of fascism in Japan. Works of Nishida Kitaro (1870-1945) and Watsuji Tetsuro (1889-1960), and the prewar contexts within which they were written, will be compared to the postwar thinkers Maruyama Masao (1914-1996) and Takeuchi Yoshimi (1910-1977). The purpose of this thesis is to examine how Japanese thinkers before and after the Second World War understood and responded to the global process of modernity, and how it relates to such political movements as liberalism and fascism.

There has been considerable debate within the field of Japanese intellectual history with respect to the influence of Nishida Kitarō (1870-1945) on the ideological foundations and philosophical justification of Japanese fascism. One of the most influential Japanese thinkers of the twentieth century and widely considered to be the father of modern Japanese philosophy, his contemporary relevance is considered to be at risk should these accusations be true. As such, contemporary scholars have attempted to show how Nishida’s philosophy was decidedly anti-fascist, and that he was in fact opposed to the actions of the wartime regime. However, as this thesis will argue, by considering Nishida’s philosophy within the larger historical context of global modernity one can see that his contemporary relevance lies in just that which allows one to consider his thought as fascist, his critique of modernity. Nishida was reacting to the transforming social and cultural landscapes that had followed the modernization of Japan initiated by the Meiji Restoration (1868). As a result, he attempted to posit a transhistorical ideal of Japanese culture, embodied concretely in the Emperor that could withstand the social abstractions of modernity. However, it was ultimately his failure to grasp his own conditions of possibility in the very modernity that he was critiquing that pushed his thought increasingly to the right, helping to fuel and legitimize the emerging fascist ideology.

After the Meiji Restoration of 1862, Western philosophy was imported and infused into Japanese culture and its intellectual climate. By the early 20th Century, Kyoto School philosophers and romantic authors sought to reaffirm Japanese culture, believed jeopardised by the hastened development of Western capitalist modernity. This movement became politically charged, and is not without fascist allegations. After the Second World War modernism again became a primary intellectual concern, as modernists and Asianists alike attempted to struggle with the idea of fascism in Japan. Works of Nishida Kitaro (1870-1945) and Watsuji Tetsuro (1889-1960), and the prewar contexts within which they were written, will be compared to the postwar thinkers Maruyama Masao (1914-1996) and Takeuchi Yoshimi (1910-1977). The purpose of this thesis is to examine how Japanese thinkers before and after the Second World War understood and responded to the global process of modernity, and how it relates to such political movements as liberalism and fascism.

There has been considerable debate within the field of Japanese intellectual history with respect to the influence of Nishida Kitarō (1870-1945) on the ideological foundations and philosophical justification of Japanese fascism. One of the most influential Japanese thinkers of the twentieth century and widely considered to be the father of modern Japanese philosophy, his contemporary relevance is considered to be at risk should these accusations be true. As such, contemporary scholars have attempted to show how Nishida’s philosophy was decidedly anti-fascist, and that he was in fact opposed to the actions of the wartime regime. However, as this thesis will argue, by considering Nishida’s philosophy within the larger historical context of global modernity one can see that his contemporary relevance lies in just that which allows one to consider his thought as fascist, his critique of modernity. Nishida was reacting to the transforming social and cultural landscapes that had followed the modernization of Japan initiated by the Meiji Restoration (1868). As a result, he attempted to posit a transhistorical ideal of Japanese culture, embodied concretely in the Emperor that could withstand the social abstractions of modernity. However, it was ultimately his failure to grasp his own conditions of possibility in the very modernity that he was critiquing that pushed his thought increasingly to the right, helping to fuel and legitimize the emerging fascist ideology.

There has been considerable debate within the field of Japanese intellectual history with respect to the influence of Nishida Kitarō (1870-1945) on the ideological foundations and philosophical justification of Japanese fascism. One of the most influential Japanese thinkers of the twentieth century and widely considered to be the father of modern Japanese philosophy, his contemporary relevance is considered to be at risk should these accusations be true. As such, contemporary scholars have attempted to show how Nishida’s philosophy was decidedly anti-fascist, and that he was in fact opposed to the actions of the wartime regime. However, as this thesis will argue, by considering Nishida’s philosophy within the larger historical context of global modernity one can see that his contemporary relevance lies in just that which allows one to consider his thought as fascist, his critique of modernity. Nishida was reacting to the transforming social and cultural landscapes that had followed the modernization of Japan initiated by the Meiji Restoration (1868). As a result, he attempted to posit a transhistorical ideal of Japanese culture, embodied concretely in the Emperor that could withstand the social abstractions of modernity. However, it was ultimately his failure to grasp his own conditions of possibility in the very modernity that he was critiquing that pushed his thought increasingly to the right, helping to fuel and legitimize the emerging fascist ideology.

There has been considerable debate within the field of Japanese intellectual history with respect to the influence of Nishida Kitarō (1870-1945) on the ideological foundations and philosophical justification of Japanese fascism. One of the most influential Japanese thinkers of the twentieth century and widely considered to be the father of modern Japanese philosophy, his contemporary relevance is considered to be at risk should these accusations be true. As such, contemporary scholars have attempted to show how Nishida’s philosophy was decidedly anti-fascist, and that he was in fact opposed to the actions of the wartime regime. However, as this thesis will argue, by considering Nishida’s philosophy within the larger historical context of global modernity one can see that his contemporary relevance lies in just that which allows one to consider his thought as fascist, his critique of modernity. Nishida was reacting to the transforming social and cultural landscapes that had followed the modernization of Japan initiated by the Meiji Restoration (1868). As a result, he attempted to posit a transhistorical ideal of Japanese culture, embodied concretely in the Emperor that could withstand the social abstractions of modernity. However, it was ultimately his failure to grasp his own conditions of possibility in the very modernity that he was critiquing that pushed his thought increasingly to the right, helping to fuel and legitimize the emerging fascist ideology.

After the Meiji Restoration of 1862, Western philosophy was imported and infused into Japanese culture and its intellectual climate. By the early 20th Century, Kyoto School philosophers and romantic authors sought to reaffirm Japanese culture, believed jeopardised by the hastened development of Western capitalist modernity. This movement became politically charged, and is not without fascist allegations. After the Second World War modernism again became a primary intellectual concern, as modernists and Asianists alike attempted to struggle with the idea of fascism in Japan. Works of Nishida Kitaro (1870-1945) and Watsuji Tetsuro (1889-1960), and the prewar contexts within which they were written, will be compared to the postwar thinkers Maruyama Masao (1914-1996) and Takeuchi Yoshimi (1910-1977). The purpose of this thesis is to examine how Japanese thinkers before and after the Second World War understood and responded to the global process of modernity, and how it relates to such political movements as liberalism and fascism.

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The so-called Critical Buddhism was originated by two Buddhist scholars at Komazawa University: Hakamaya Noriaki and Matsumoto Shiro. It stirred up great controversy by its claims that the teachings of Tathagatagarbha, Buddha-nature, original enlightenment, and the philosophy of Kyoto School are not Buddhist, and aroused great interest and responses from Buddhists and Buddhologist in Japan.( Shih, Heng-Ching¡F2001) They condemn the ideas of Buddha Nature, Tathāgatagarbha and Original Enlightenment developed in China and Japan as deviating from the fundamental Buddhist thoughts of pratītyasamutpāda and śūnyatā, thereby backtracking to the substantialism of the idea of Brahman in the Upaniṣads.At the level of social criticism, Critical Buddhism blamed the idea of Wa (harmony), which derives from Tathaagatagarbha thought, for social discrimination and injustice.(Yu-Kwan Ng¡F2009) The same controversy caused by Zhi Na Nei Xue Yuan and New Confucianism also occurred in China. Therefore,the development of Buddhism in China and Japan both became the representations of East Asia. The development of Buddhism became not only the characteristic of civilization, but aslo the public philosophy of East Asia through the concept of ¡§Nothing¡§(µL).

In this philosophical work I explicate Nishida Kitaro's dialectics vis-à-vis Mahayana non-dualistic thought and Hegel's dialectical philosophy, and furthermore in terms of a "chiasmatic chorology." Nishida's work makes ample usage of western philosophical concepts, most notably the terminology of Hegelian dialectics. Nishida himself has admitted affinity to Hegel. And yet content-wise the core of Nishida's thinking seem close to Mahayana Buddhism in its line of thought traceable to the Prajñaparamita sutras. The point of my investigation is to clarify in what regard Nishida's dialectic owes allegiance to Hegel and to Mahayana and wherein it diverges from them. Moreover to what extent is Nishida's appropriation of Hegelian terminology adequate in expressing his thought? The work explicates the distinctive aspects of Nishida's thinking in terms of a "chiasmatic chorology" to emphasize the inter-dimensional and placial complexity of the dialectic. In summary two overarching concerns guide the work: 1) The relation of Nishida's dialectic to its forebears -- Mahayana non-dualism and Hegelian dialectics --; and 2) The distinctness of that dialectic as a "chiasmatic chorology." The work concludes that while Nishida, in his attempt to surmount the dualism of Neo-Kantianism, was led to Hegel's dialectic, the core ideas of his dialectic extend beyond the purview of Hegelianism. Contentwise his dialectic is closer in spirit to Mahayana. While Nishida admits to such commensurability with key Mahayana doctrines, his thought nevertheless ought not to be confined to the doctrinal category of "Buddhist thought" both because of its eclectic nature that brings in elements drawn from western and eastern sources, thereby constituting his work as a "world philosophy"; and because of its creative contributions, such as the formulation of basho and its explication in dialectical terms. What cannot be expressed adequately in terms of Hegelian dialectics is the concrete chiasma of what Nishida calls his "absolute dialectic." Moreover its founding upon the choratic nature of basho not only escapes the grasp of Hegel's self-knowing concept but extends beyond previous formulations within Buddhism. / Religion